The one you love
by El Juno
Summary: If you can't be with the one you love... Ken thinking, 25 years after the end of 02...Daiken, Hiyako, and less than happy Kenyako.


Needless to say, this contains spoilers for the end of 02 (as if everyone, their mother and their dog hadn't heard them already...). We weren't given names for the respective children of the DigiDestined...or if we did, they didn't come to me...so I have made up my own. This also, like just about everything I've ever written, contains Yaoi and Yuri...It also has the now "official" 02 pairing...Kenyako.

I own nothing Digimon related, of course. Except the names of the Inoue-Ichijouji brats and the Motomiya brat...and any idea of a love interconnection therein, or the end of the Motomiya marriage...

Ken's POV

*****

"If you can't be with the one you love..."

I suppose Miyako and I make sense...we've been friends for a long time...a VERY long time. She's always been able to listen to me, to put up with me...even occasionally be a shoulder to cry on...and she's SO like...

I shouldn't be thinking about that.

She's pretty enough, too, I suppose, given that the entire idea of feminine beauty is strange to me...abstract, I guess. On an abstract level, I can say she's beautiful. And...our children...

Before they were born, I'd have taken it all back. I'd have given everything up. But...I wouldn't trade my kids for anything. My...OUR oldest, Keiko...she's so like her mother it's almost frightening. If it wasn't for that black hair, she could be Miyako, back when I saw her the first time. Osamu...the name wasn't my choice, really. I remember growing up in the shadow of ONE Ichijouji Osamu...and I didn't want to put all that on some poor kid. But Miyako...she insisted. She thought of it as a gift, I suppose. And my parents most definitely approved. But, Osamu...physically, he's my shadow...his mother's hair, and something of Miyako's nose and hands...but he looks like me. Emotionally, though...what a whirlwind! He's a prankster, too smart for his own good, always annoying his sister, planning, teasing...He'd make a great con-man, I think. Or politician.

Or, scary as the thought is...he'd make a great Kaizer...

My...OUR youngest...Ayako. A sweetheart with huge purple eyes and the cutest little nose. She can't even talk yet, and she has Miyako and I COMPLETELY wrapped around her little finger.

I love them all.

I even suppose I can say that I love Miyako. Not...not like I should, not like she DESERVES...but I could never, really love her like that, I suppose. I've tried, really. Very hard. I mean, she was the greatest girl I knew, and she grew into the greatest woman I know...but...there's the rub, right?

The first time I kissed her, I was completely heartbroken already. I...I had...I wasn't...I was hurting so much...and she was THERE. She was always there. I almost expected her to know why I was doing it, see what was going on...but she IS a lot like...never mind. She never knew. Or...if she did, she didn't mind. Or tried to pretend she didn't. She is wonderful, really.

Even if she's never been the one I wanted...

Last week there was sort of an unofficial reunion. All of the DigiDestined were there, with the sole exceptions of Mimi, who was working on...something. Sora, who was in America and Matt, who was...doing something. I don't know. And I looked at all of us, our kids playing...and at some point Osamu apparently decided that Motomiya Jiro would be a GREAT target...someone who he could outsmart with no trouble. I never got the whole story...I just know that they went outside and it apparently came to blows...they both came back winded and dirty...and, like a lot of little-boy fights, they ended as best friends. Funny, really. I turned to give Miyako a conspiratorial glance, saw her apparently just sitting with Ayako and kept turning...

And HE was RIGHT THERE.

Daisuke. He grew up...wonderfully. He got even stronger...by everything. I'd spent so many years trying to ignore him, how he was making me feel, so I figured it would be easy to keep it up. Anyway, I'm 36 now. I shouldn't be going all fluttery near someone I loved at 11...but he walked over and gave me a friendly cuff on the shoulder.

"Can you BELIEVE our kids, Ken?" He asked, laughing. Always laughing...

And I looked right at him, and, so help me, I was blushing. "Yeah." I muttered. He seems so happy...he always seemed so happy and...so help me...I realized...it wasn't much of a realization, but it hit me SO hard right then...I could barely fight it...that I still wanted to kiss him...to hold him...to...

Well, I HAD had a little bit to drink...

I swallowed and nodded, turning my head, and I caught sight of Miyako again. She was still standing there, holding Ayako, smiling gently...but...but...her eyes were over on Hikari and on her face...hidden in her eyes...was this strange, brittle-bright pain...and...

And I remembered a comment she'd made on a few occasions. "Ken's like Hikari, isn't he?"

I'd never, before that moment, stopped to think about what SHE felt...what was going on on her end. I'd always assumed that...never stopped to think that, maybe, to her I was second best, as well. An effigy for the one she wanted.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I was reading too much into it. That Miyako was hurting over something else. Maybe that Hikari had a life...a career...and that she was stuck with the kids. It's a waste, really. She had so much potential, so much going for her...and...

But...then again...the Jogress HAD to have hit her as hard as it did me. She and Hikari...they were connected. Like Daisuke and I...

And she's SO much like Daisuke...

And I DO have some things in common with Hikari...she's said so on more than one occasion...

It's possible...that...

Oh, hell.

Anyway, as we were going home afterwards (Ayako asleep in my arms and Keiko herself blinking sleepy eyes...Osamu, king of hyperactivity, was still up, but silent...) I managed to get a few words out of my wayward son.

"Jiro's okay." He muttered, looking pointedly away.

And...so help me...I swear he was blushing.

And we got home, and Miyako put the kids to bed and then we sat at the kitchen table.

And we just sat. In silence.

For a long time.

It was a brittle silence. A painful silence. The kind of silence that springs up when the only things left to say are the ones that are too big, too painful to bear.

When we're both afraid of speaking, because we're afraid it'll destroy what we have left.

After a few minutes, Miyako stood up and started to make tea. I watched her, silently.

Did I ever...ever love her? Do I now?

I've tried, at least.

She slowly set the cups down, and I nodded. Most of the time I'd have kissed her cheek or something...a show of affection, of obligation...but I'm too tired to pretend right now. Too tired of everything. She seemed to understand, though, and sat down across from me. I took a sip of the tea, enough to wet my throat, enough to clear myself, enough work out some words.

"Where are Hawkmon and Wormmon?" I asked. Nothing like what I'd meant to say, but I've never been the bravest thing, really. At least...not where it mattered.

"Asleep." She said, and then the silence fell again.

I nodded, slowly, and then looked down at my tea. There was a lot I wanted to say; a lot I wanted her to hear. And I had a feeling that there was a lot I needed to hear out of her. But I couldn't get the words out. I was too afraid. Miyako...she was less afraid. She sighed and looked up at me. She looked careworn for a second. Much older than her real age.

"Ken?" She asked.

"Hmm?"

"Did you ever...did you ever think you'd end up like this?"

"Like what?"

She sighed. "You know."

A whole life summed up in those two words. "I...no." I admitted. "But, then again, there were times I never thought I'd live this long. You?"

She shook her head. "I thought...I wanted children, but I wanted...a life, too." She plays the same game I do. Not saying nearly enough to cover everything, just enough that I can imply whatever I want.

"You can still have one." I pointed out. "I mean..." What did I mean? What did she mean? I was suddenly struck by how little we really knew each other...horrible, I know.

But no less horrible than anything else here.

"And what?" She asked. "Leave the kids with some stranger? Ken, you know I can't do that."

How smart. She ran the conversation back to arguments we'd had before. I wasn't in the mood to pursue it. "Did...did you see Osamu and Jiro today?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Reminded me of two other kids I could name. They'll be...friends, I think. Just like..." She couldn't continue.

And I knew then. I knew that she knew it all. Knew everything. Hell, I probably talk in my sleep or something. Muttering Daisuke's name to myself would be a dead giveaway...

There was a lot I almost brought up there. I almost confessed to what she already knew. I almost gave up what I knew about her heart.

I almost told about the slight blush on Osamu's cheeks as he mentioned Jiro's name.

But I let it all slide and looked back at my teacup. When I looked back up, she was looking pointedly away and blushing slightly.

She has to feel like hell.

"Miyako..." I began, swallowing my pride and my fear, about to let out the words I'd been keeping in for a long time...the words that would put everything out into the air between us...everything we don't WANT to say, but we should admit.

However, Ayako chose that moment to begin crying. "Hold that thought." Miyako said, then ran off in the direction of the nursery. And I sat and slumped.

It's not just us. That's the problem. Keiko...Osamu...Ayako...we should never have had them. They...they shouldn't have had to come into...into this...this...

I love them so much, though.

I clutched my hands around my teacup and felt tears begin trickling down my face. Miyako walked back in, Ayako held in her arms.

"Ken." She said. "What's wrong?"

I looked up and wiped my cheeks. I probably still could have said everything. Could have brought it all out into the open...but...

But Ayako turned and looked at me...my eyes in Miyako's face...sweet...such a sweetheart...and she smiled a huge guileless smile and giggled.

"Let me hold her for a second." I said. Miyako didn't say anything, just passed Ayako over to me, and I looked down at her. Ayako blinked huge eyes at me, smiled a little, then, innocent as anything, grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled it towards her mouth.

"No, honey." I whispered and tried to pull the strands out from between her fingers. She has a grip on her, though. "Fine." I muttered. "Be that way."

Ayako giggled and pulled.

Miyako yawned. "I'm going to bed." She said. "When you two are done playing, can you put her down?"

I tried to nod, but a certain person's death grip on my forelock prevented it. "Okay." I said. Miyako nodded and padded off to bed.

I just sat with Ayako until she fell asleep...until the strong little hand on my hair loosened...and beyond, just listening to her breaths and breathing her sweet baby smell. I touched my lips to the top of her head, right where the silk-soft hair parted and her scalp was visible. She murmured a little and cuddled closer into my arms.

"I love you." I whispered...whispered to one of the only people I could hand that statement relatively untarnished.

Do I love Miyako? Not like she deserves.

Do I love Daisuke? Oh, I always have. Ever since the first moment I saw him, I think. It's been too long, though, and there is too much distance...two many lies...between the slim boy-genius and the gangly goggle-clad boy he fell in love with...too much fear...and...

Remember how I said that the first time I kissed Miyako it was out of heartbreak?

It was the night after Daisuke told me...wide-eyed and happy...about his engagement.

But do I love Keiko? Or Osamu? Or little Ayako? Always and forever, from the first moment they turned innocent eyes on me...on the man who was cruel enough...selfish enough...to bring them into his blasted life...

And...because I love them...I'll keep this up. Miyako and I.

And if Osamu ever comes to me, confused and stuttering, asking those questions that I never had anyone to ask when I was younger...asking about why he feels this way, why Jiro...or maybe some other boy...makes him feel all jittery...or maybe if he's figured it out, and just wants to feel out what I'll say, how I'll feel?

Then I'll play that game he does so well...the one I could do at his age...and I'll hide the truth behind words, and I'll tell him my story. Or...at least I'll let him know. I let him know that I love him. And that he shouldn't be as stupid as I was.

That he should follow his heart. Anywhere it leads him. And not listen to what other people tell him.

And I'm sure that if Keiko or Ayako ever comes to Miyako, she'll do the same thing. At least, I hope so. It's really shameful how little I know my own wife...but I have a feeling she'll do the same thing. Especially since the more I think about it, the more that look she gave Hikari...the more it only makes sense as the same kind of look I was giving Daisuke. Lost, loving, longing.

That night I put Ayako down, and then climbed into my own bed. Miyako and I don't share a bed...we haven't for a while, at least not since she was so hugely pregnant with Ayako and so miserable...she had aches and couldn't bear to be touched, and I tend to toss in my sleep. Wormmon was curled up at the foot of my bed, sleeping gently. He looked up as I lay down, then went back to sleep.

And that night...

I dreamed. A...dream. I was young again, and free again, and I was running with Daisuke...maybe in the digital world, maybe in the real world...but his hand was holding mine, and then he turned and pulled me in close and we kissed.

And I woke up with tears on my cheeks.

God, I'm selfish. I want to be happy, even now. I want HIM. And I know...I know Miyako has the same kind of problem.

It's not...not fair.

But who ever said life was fair?

And...I suppose I love Miyako. Not like I should...not like I've tried to...but I love her...

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with," you know. It's a messed up, horrible, unbelievably painful dictum, but it's the best I've got.

And, at this moment I am standing at the door to Keiko and Osamu's room, just watching them sleep, listening to them snore. Osamu mutters something to himself...something which just might be a name...a name that ends with an "O" unsurprisingly. It's one of those moments that might just make me believe in Karma...or maybe in the Christian equivalent, which is much messier, much crueler, but more fitting. "The sins of the fathers..." and all that.

"Love the one you're with."

I'm with them. For better or for worse, 'til death do us part. I might as well have said those vows to them, because they are the ones that I honor and cherish...and love...

And I'll give up a lot for that. Even the thought of true love...deep love...

And the possibility that Daisuke might have something for me...I've wondered, since he and his wife broke up last year...wondered if...he never WAS good at hiding some things...

He's got Jiro, though. He's got things...he needs to...

And I...

I...

Slowly, I close the door to Osamu and Keiko's room and walk back down the hall.


End file.
